Mom's Report to Us

Mom returned home late last night, and we required a full report. She showed us lots of pictures from her trip, but we still think that her time would have been better spent with us here at home. You be the judge.

The conference was held in Williamsburg.

Early Thursday morning, before the conference sessions, Mom went for a walk down to Colonial Williamsburg, where she saw some sheep with blue rear ends!

As part of the conference, the group toured the Jamestown settlement. This year marks its 400th anniversary, and a major celebration, complete with respective appearances by Queen Elizabeth II and President Bush, will take place May 11-13. (Click to biggify to read the sign.)

This is a reproduction of the Susan Constant, the largest of the three ships that made the voyage.

Here is one of the buildings inside the Jamestown fort. A man is repairing the roof.

Once the conference, complete with classes, a business meeting, and a big banquet, was over, Mom went for a walk around her old college campus. (One of Caesar and Prinnie's girls is a current student.) This was Friday, the day of mourning for the Va. Tech massacre, and VT emblems were posted over W&M's signs.

This is Crim Dell pond, where there was a banner for Va. Tech as well as one for Project Hope relating to Honduras.

Mom doesn't know any current Va. Tech students, but her oldest niece and fiance went there, and they still live in Blacksburg. Mom also knows someone whose daughters recently graduated from Westfield High School, and Centreville is a town right next to ours. Westfield is considered an excellent high school.

After her stroll around campus, Mom went to CW ("Colonial Williamsburg"), but couldn't proceed very far down DOG ("Duke of Gloucester" not a real d-o-g) Street because of some movie-making. Mom didn't ask for details, but she took a couple of photos.

The smells from the catering trailers were yummy. Too bad we couldn't have explored THAT.

Mom made a brief stop at the Edgar Allen Poe Museum in Richmond where her brother works part-time. Her next stop was in Midlothian, a suburb of Richmond, where her brother and family live.










Mom's brother and family have four* cats and one dog. Rags, the dog, got in front of the camera just as Mom pushed the button to take a picture of one of the cats. We think this is a funny picture.

Here is Mom's youngest niece, who is 12. She just got braces for her teeth that day, and her mouth was sore. She's holding Sophie, the youngest cat in the household.

*ALERT: The calico cat, Juni-Purr, is missing! View her here. She went outside on Wednesday and has not come home. The family posted some signs and searched the neighborhood. They are heartened by the fact that I ran away a few times (once for two weeks), and I eventually came home. Mom called her sister-in-law tonight for an update, but Juni is still not home.

Today Mom and Dad went to Manassas National Battlefield Park where they like to regularly go for walks and short hikes. The Virginia bluebells are in bloom down by Bull Run. Mom says that it is hard to capture their beauty on film, so we'll just have to take her word for it that there was a carpet of blue. We might post some more pictures of our own garden in the next few days.

We are saddened that Gizzy passed away while Mom was gone. We continue to send pawsitive thoughts to Lilly Lu and hope that she gets well.

~Bathsheba